Labor's 'great and powerful' policy battle

By Robert ManneNovember 4 2002

The outcome of the diplomatic manoeuvring over the United Nations Security Council resolution on weapons inspection in Iraq should be known within days. One possibility is a compromise satisfactory both to the United States and France. If Iraq accepts its terms, peace may be at hand. If it resists, there will almost certainly be war.

Another possibility is a breakdown in the negotiations between the US and France. In this case, the US is prepared to go to war against Iraq, without UN mandate. With or without a Security Council resolution, the likelihood of a US war against Iraq remains high.

If there is to be such a war, Australia will line up alongside the US. Throughout this year, the Howard Government has followed every twist of US policy over Iraq like a faithful lamb. When the US announced its new revolutionary strategic doctrine of the pre-emptive strike, the Minister for Defence, Robert Hill, almost nonchalantly offered our immediate support. When, in July, the US appeared ready to go to war without reference to the UN, the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, described all opposition to such a war as "appeasement". When, in August, after misgivings about US unilateralism were voiced, the Government immediately praised the newfound US commitment to the UN. When the UN, however, proved resistant to US insistence upon a resolution which would provide it with an automatic trigger for the use of military force, the Government agreed that the very future of the UN was at risk.

In any explanation of Australia's Iraq policy, history weighs heavily. As its architect, John Howard has acted as both the inheritor and, indeed, the radical simplifier of the most fundamental foreign policy belief embedded in the Australian conservative tradition - namely that the only reliable safeguard for our security is to offer faithful and predictable support to the strategic policy of one or another of what Sir Robert Menzies famously called our "great and powerful friends".

For the first 40 years of the nation's history, Australia was, even among the dominions, the most unproblematic follower of the foreign and defence policy of the British Empire. For the past 40 years - with the exception of the Whitlam years - we have probably been the most reliable ally of the US. Even the fact that we are contemplating sending a force to Iraq is rooted in deep historic soil. In support of Britain or the US, Australia has committed forces to the Middle East or thereabouts in 1915, 1939, 1991 and 2001.");document.write("

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The moral of all this is clear. If in the next weeks or months the US goes to war against Iraq, so will we. A far more interesting question is the likely attitude of the ALP.

Once again history weighs heavily. Concerning the question of support for our "great and powerful friends", the Labor tradition is far more complex and ambiguous than the conservative legacy. In general, Labor has acknowledged Australia's reliance for our security on the British or the Americans. However, this acknowledgement has frequently been tempered by thoughts and experiences of a contradictory kind. Within the history of Labor there are extremely powerful tendencies militating against support for the kind of pre-emptive, unilateral action proposed by the US.

The ALP has embedded within its own account of its role in the making of Australian foreign policy, several self-congratulatory stories emphasising independence from a great and powerful friend. One of Labor's most resonant myths concerns John Curtin's defiance of Winston Churchill in 1942 when Curtin demanded that Australian troops returning from the Middle East be sent home and not to the reinforcement of the imperial Burmese force.

Another seminal Labor independence story centres on the role played by Doc Evatt in the early years of the Cold War, as the noble but ill-fated mediator of great power conflict between the Soviet Union and the US. Among true believers it is, moreover, precisely for its plucky independence from the US that the foreign policy of the Whitlam government is most highly praised.

Within the Labor tradition there are, however, even more solid historical grounds than the valorisation of independence for resistance to a unilateral US war against Iraq. Since 1945 the ALP has consistently balanced loyalty to its great power protector with enthusiasm for international organisations, most importantly the UN, and for the principles of multilateralism and the spread of international law. Just as middle power realism is at the heart of the conservative foreign policy tradition in Australia, so is liberal internationalism at the core of the ALP's foreign policy thinking.

Will, however, the ALP oppose a US war against Iraq? It is difficult to say. As things stand, Labor opposition to a war against Iraq, without unambiguous UN mandate, would have the backing of a substantial section of Australia's former political and military elite. It would also have a solid chance of support from a majority of the Australian people, who are at present overwhelmingly opposed to it. On the other hand, opposition to any war commitment, when troops have been dispatched, is inherently risky. Since the Tampa crisis, moreover, Labor has been mesmerised by fears of the populist conservatism unleashed by the Howard Government - by its capacity to destabilise the ALP by a crude appeal to the most bellicose sentiments of the Australian people. In a deep sense, since Tampa, Labor has lost its nerve.

Over Iraq, then, the ALP is suspended between its fear that public opinion might rally to the Government, and its need to reveal to the Australian people that it has regained the courage to oppose.

Only one thing seems clear. If it comes to a US war with Iraq, it is around the attitude of Crean Labor that the future of Australian party politics will be shaped.